- Letters: A/DELNQU
- Words: 61
- Points: 278
- Pangrams: 1
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The table provides clues for the roots of words in today's NY Times Spelling Bee. You're responsible for prefixes, suffixes,
tense changes, plurals, doubling consonants before suffixes, and alternate spellings of roots. An exception:
since Sam won't allow S, when the root contains an S, the clue may be for a plural or suffixed form. "Mice" for example.
If a clue isn't self-explanatory, try googling it.
The TL;DR about the site comes after the table.
Past clues are available here |
Today's puzzle
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Table content
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| answers covered | answer's first letter | answer's length | clue for root (answer may need prefix, suffix, tense change, alt spelling, ...) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A | 5 | Join something to something else |
| 2 | A | 6,7 | Math term for a number which is summed with another (the “1” or “2” in 1 + 2 = 3) |
| 2 | A | 5,6 | Confuse, muddle |
| 1 | A | 6 | (Bio term) 1 of 2 or more versions of a gene |
| 2 | A | 6,7 | Suggest or call attention to indirectly; or hint at; or make a subtle reference to |
| 1 | A | 5 | Yearly record book |
| 2 | A | 6,8 | Heat then cool metal or glass slowly to toughen it |
| 1 | A | 6 | Yearly, adj. |
| 2 | A | 5,8 | Void a marriage |
| 1 | A | 4 | Opening at the end of the alimentary canal through which solid waste matter leaves the body, adj. form also means uptight |
| 1 | A | 4 | Water; or a light greenish-blue color |
| 1 | D | 4 | A valley, especially a broad one (over hill, over …, we have hit the dusty trail) |
| 2 | D | 6,7 | Move a baby up and down in a playful or affectionate way |
| 3 | D | 4,6,8 | Not alive |
| 1 | D | 4 | Agreement, noun/verb (Monty Hall's Let's Make a …, or Trump's Art of the …) |
| 1 | D | 4 | College administrator, or actor James of “Rebel Without a Cause” |
| 1 | D | 4 | Having two parts; NOT pistol fight at dawn |
| 1 | E | 4 | Énérgy, stylé, énthusiasm; from Frénch |
| 1 | E | 5 | Spiral-horned African antelope (largest African antelope), noun; put a consonant at the end of énérgy |
| 1 | E | 6 | A group of 9, from Greek (such as the 9 Egyptian deities “The Great …”) |
| 2 | E | 5,7 | Same as (math symbol is two horizontal bars), adj./verb, negated past tense is a pangram |
| 3 | L | 4,5,5 | Load cargo (root is archaic, derivatives are still in use) |
| 2 | L | 5,6 | Long-handled utensil for serving soup |
| 2 | L | 4,6 | Alight on the ground, verb/noun |
| 1 | L | 4 | Small road (Beatles’ Penny … or Superman’s Lois …) |
| 2 | L | 4,6 | Praise, verb/noun |
| 3 | L | 4,6,6 | Guide your group from the front; be ahead in a game; dull gray metal |
| 2 | L | 4,6 | Not fatty (… meat), adj.; or incline (… back in your chair) |
| 1 | L | 4 | Hawaiian BBQ |
| 1 | L | 4 | Roman moon goddess, or nutrition bar brand |
| 2 | L | 6,7 | ½–moon shaped fingertip base white area (Latin "little moon") |
| 1 | N | 4 | Indiaan flaat breaad |
| 1 | N | 4 | Nothing, Spanish |
| 1 | N | 4 | Grandma, slang; or Peter Pan dog |
| 1 | Q | 8 | Methaqualone brand name |
| 1 | Q | 4 | Group of four; or four-sided courtyard; or big muscle at the top of your thigh |
| 1 | U | 6 | Not alive |
| 2 | U | 7,9 | Same as (math symbol is two horizontal bars), adj./verb, negated past tense is a pangram |
| 1 | U | 7 | Load cargo (root is archaic, derivatives are still in use) |
| 1 | U | 8 | Guide your group from the front; be ahead in a game; dull gray metal |
| 2 | U | 4,5 | Forearm bone opposite radius |
This site provides clues for a day's New York Times Spelling Bee puzzle. It follows in Kevin Davis' footsteps. The original set of 4,500 clues came from him, and they still make up about three quarters of the current clue set.
The "Bee Roots" approach is to provide explicit clues for root words, not every word. As logophiles, we are pretty good at putting on prefixes and suffixes, changing tense, and forming plurals (including Latin plurals!). The clues cover root words, arranged alphabetically by root word, with a count of words in the puzzle that come from each root. For example, if a puzzle includes ROAM and ROAMING, there will be a clue for ROAM and a count of 2. The root may not appear in the puzzle at all; for example, the 2021-07-23 Bee included ICED, DEICE, and DEICED. For such a puzzle, the clue would be for ICE with a word count of 3.
The Bee Roots approach involves judgement sometimes. For example, if a puzzle includes LOVE, LOVED, and LOVELY, how many roots are needed to cover them? LOVE and LOVED share the root LOVE, certainly, but LOVELY is tricky. LOVE is part of its etymology, but by now, the word means "exquisitely beautiful," which is a lot farther from the meaning of LOVE than swithcing to past tense. I'm inclined to treat LOVE and LOVELY as separate roots. You may not agree, which is fine. Another thing we logophiles share is a LOVE of arguing about words on Twitter.
A few words can have one meaning as a suffixed form and another as a stand-alone word. EVENING, for example. In those cases I will use the meaning that I think is more common.
One last complication, until another one pops up: a few roots have multiple spellings, for example LOLLYGAG and LALLYGAG. Depending on the day's letters, and maybe even the editor's whims, one or both could be in the puzzle's answer list. With such roots, you could see a word count of 2, even if there are no applicable prefixes or suffixes.
I will do my best to keep this site up to date and helpful (I hope). Check it out, and tweet feedback to @donswartwout Tweet to @donswartwout